Three Systems of Insular Functional Connectivity Identified with Cluster Analysis

Abstract

Despite much research on the function of the insular cortex, few studies have investigated functional subdivisions of the insula in humans. The present study used resting-state functional connectivity magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to parcellate the human insular lobe based on clustering of functional connectivity patterns. Connectivity maps were computed for each voxel in the insula based on resting-state functional MRI (fMRI) data and segregated using cluster analysis. We identified 3 insular subregions with distinct patterns of connectivity: a posterior region, functionally connected with primary and secondary somatomotor cortices; a dorsal anterior to middle region, connected with dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, along with other regions of a previously described control network; and a ventral anterior region, primarily connected with pregenual anterior cingulate cortex. Applying these regions to a separate task data set, we found that dorsal and ventral anterior insula responded selectively to disgusting images, while posterior insula did not. These results demonstrate that clustering of connectivity patterns can be used to subdivide cerebral cortex into anatomically and functionally meaningful subregions; the insular regions identified here should be useful in future investigations on the function of the insula.

Abnormal functional global and local brain connectivity in female patients with anorexia nervosa

“…[30][31][32] Since the insula is a relatively large and heterogeneous brain region, task related fMRI and RSFC data have been used to identify distinct in sula subregions yielding a tripartite subdivision. 33,34 While the ventroanterior and dorsoanterior regions have been asso ciated with chemosensory, 35 socioemotional 36 and higher cog nitive processing, respectively, 37,38 the posterior insula region has been associated with pain and sensorimotor process ing. 39,40 Of note, both insula nodes that showed group differ ences in our study can be grouped with the "posterior in sula" according to functional connectivity and meta analytic data.…”

“…39,40 Of note, both insula nodes that showed group differ ences in our study can be grouped with the "posterior in sula" according to functional connectivity and meta analytic data. 33,34 The posterior insula is part of a network including the somatosensory cortex and supplementary motor area (SMA) as well as the posterior temporal lobes and rostral ACC. 33,34 According to Damasio's somatic marker hypothesis, 41 emo tional states arise from rapid and unconscious processing of exteroceptive and interoceptive sensory stimuli.…”

Putting Ourselves in Another’s Skin: Using the Plasticity of Self-Perception to Enhance Empathy and Decrease Prejudice

“…The relationship between self-representation and the insula is more complex. Several recent meta-analyses of the insula (Chang, Yarkoni, Khaw, & Sanfey, 2013;Deen, Pitskel, & Pelphrey, 2011) have suggested evidence for a tripartite division between three areas: a posterior region (PI) which is thought to be a key hub for integrating booth internal and external signals relating to the body (Craig, 2009); a ventroanterior region (vAI) which is the region most strongly linked to the processing of emotional (Morita et al, 2013;Sanfey, Rilling, Aronson, Nystrom, & Cohen, 2003) and social information (Lindner et al, 2013;Xiang, Lohrenz, & Montague, 2013); and a dorsoanterior region (dAI) involved in higherlevel cognitive processing such as attention (Eckert et al, 2009). However, despite these functional differentiations, it is important to note that these areas show significant reciprocal connections between them with signals about the body processed in PI feeding into social-affective processing in vAI and into conscious awareness via attentional processing in the dAI (Craig, 2009;Simmons et al, 2013).…”

Feature-reduction and semi-simulated data in functional connectivity-based cortical parcellation

“…The use of restingstate functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) has led to a number of studies in recent years that have investigated this functional 'connectional fingerprint' in relation to cortical parcellation [11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22] . By measuring the cross-correlation of low-frequency blood oxygenation level-dependent fluctuations between brain voxels while subjects are at rest [23] , one can calculate the functional connectivity between any pair of voxels.…”

“…This method using rs-fMRI to perform cortical parcellation has provided finegrained functional subdivisions of the anterior cingulate cortex [11] , precuneus [24,25] , thalamus [22] , basal ganglia [13] , lateral parietal cortex [14] , medial frontal cortex [12,18] , and insular cortex [15,16] , as well as the subdivision of the whole brain [17,26] . The fine-grained functional subdivisions of brain regions can be further used to investigate the organization Xiaoguang Tian, et al Feature-reduction and semi-simulated data in functional connectivity-based cortical parcellation 335 analysis were more reliable.…”